This document discusses self-awareness in psychology and proposes a framework for computational self-awareness. It defines different types of self-awareness, such as implicit/explicit and private/public. It also outlines levels of self-awareness ranging from stimulus awareness to meta-self-awareness. Finally, it proposes applying these concepts to computing by defining private and public computational self-awareness and levels that could emerge from interactions between components.

1. Designed by Peter Lewis
Self-awarenesss and
Computational Self-awareness
Introduction to the principles of
self-awareness

2. Designed by Peter Lewis
Overview of this lecture
•Some notions of self-awareness.
•Types of self-awareness.
•A framework for computational self-awareness.

3. Designed by Peter Lewis
Self-awareness
•Term first appeared around
the start of the 20th century.
•Emerging field within
psychology, 1960s-1980s.
•Various definitions, e.g.
“The capacity to become the object of one's own attention”
(Morin, 2006).
“...knowledge of oneself as a defined entity, independent of
other individuals...” (Legrain et al., 2010).

4. Designed by Peter Lewis
Implicit and explicit self-awareness
•Implicit self-awareness:
The self as “I”.
The self is the “subject of experience”.
Ability to perceive that there is something unique about what was
experienced, which differentiates it from the surrounding
environment.
Things experienced are uniquely situated in relation to oneself.
Can explore experiences as responses to actions, explore
interactions over time.
See Rochat (2003) and Legrain et al. (2010) for more.
But some psychologists (e.g. Morin, 2006) argue that very simple
implicit self-awareness to be consciousness but not “genuine” self-
awareness.

5. Designed by Peter Lewis
Implicit and explicit self-awareness
•Explicit self-awareness:
A mental representation of “me”.
The self is the object of ones attention.
The individual is aware that it is awake and experiencing
specific mental events, emitting behaviours and possessing
unique characteristics.
Knowledge of oneself as a defined entity, independent of
others.
Knowledge that oneself remains stable and consistent over
time.
See Morin (2006) and Legrain et al. (2010) for more.

6. Designed by Peter Lewis
Private and public self-awareness
•Private self-awareness:
Knowledge of and based on phenomena internal to oneself.
May involve awareness of values, goals or behaviour.
E.g. I am hungry, my feet hurt.
•Public self-awareness:
Knowledge of and based on phenomena external to oneself.
Ones perception of experiences in the environment.
Subjective.
E.g. awareness of relationships to others, how others perceive me.
See Duval & Wicklund (1972) and Goukens et al. (2007) for more.

7. Designed by Peter Lewis
Levels of self-awareness
Self-awareness is not an “on
or off” capability!
•The self-awareness
capabilities of an individual
can be described as being at
one or more levels.
•These levels range from very
simplistic capabilities to highly
complex ones.

8. Designed by Peter Lewis
Neisser's levels of self-awareness
1. Ecological self
(Awareness of internal or external stimuli).
2. Interpersonal self
(Awareness of interactions with others).
3. Extended self
(Awareness of time: past and/or future).
4. Private self
(Awareness of owns own thoughts, feelings,
intentions).
5. Conceptual self
(Awareness of ones own self-awareness,
possession of an abstract model of oneself).
The conceptual self has the
capacity for “meta-self-
awareness”, being aware that
one is self-aware.
See Neisser (1997).

9. Designed by Peter Lewis
Emergence of self-awareness
•In collective systems, the entire system can appear self-
aware,
•Though constituent parts may exhibit less self-awareness
themselves.
•Self-information is distributed about the system, and not present
at any single point.
•See Mitchell (2005).

10. Designed by Peter Lewis
Computational framework
We would like to to take some of these ideas, and translate and
apply them to the design of computing systems.
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Why?
•Provide a common understanding and language for self-aware computing.
•Relate computing concepts to psychological basis – draw inspiration from
natural systems.
•Enable the principled engineering of self-aware systems by identifying
common features and how to build them.

11. Designed by Peter Lewis
Private and public computational
self-awareness
•Private self-awareness: Concerned with knowledge of internal things.
E.g.
Internal state / measurements,
Current performance, overheads, progress towards ones own goals,
Own capabilities, available algorithms.
•Public self-awareness: Concerned with knowledge of external things.
E.g.
State of the observed physical environment,
Social environment and interactions (i.e. other agents, components,
nodes...)
Collective goals, others' goals, and progress towards them.

12. Designed by Peter Lewis
Levels of Computational
Self-awareness
•Ecological self → Stimulus awareness
•Interpersonal self → Interaction awareness
•Extended self → Time awareness
•Private self → Goal awareness
•Conceptual self → Meta-self-awareness
→

13. Designed by Peter Lewis
Stimulus awareness
•Awareness of
experiencing stimuli.
•Enables the ability to
respond to events.
•No knowledge of reasons
for stimuli.
•No knowledge of past /
future stimuli.
•Stimuli can be internal or
external.
•E.g. simple reflex agent.

14. Designed by Peter Lewis
Interaction awareness
•Knowledge that stimuli and actions form
interactions.
•Knowledge of interactions with others and
the environment.
•Knowledge that actions can provoke,
generate or cause specific reactions.
•Simple interaction awareness may enable
reasoning about individual interactions.
•More advanced interaction awareness may
involve knowledge of social structures such
as communities or networks.

15. Designed by Peter Lewis
Time awareness
•Knowledge of past or
likely future phenomena.
•May involve explicit
memory, time series
modelling or anticipation.
•Relates to both internal
and external experiences.
•E.g. model-based reflex
agent.

16. Designed by Peter Lewis
Goal awareness
•Knowledge of goals (including
progress towards goals)
•E.g. goal states, objective functions,
utility functions.
•May include knowledge of
preferences, values, constraints.
•Permits acknowledgement and
adaptation to changes in goals.
•E.g. utility-based / goal-based
agent.

17. Designed by Peter Lewis
Meta-self-awareness
•Knowledge of ones own self-awareness capabilities.
•May include knowledge of which levels are present,
and how they are implemented.
•Permits the ability to reason about the benefits and
costs of engaging in certain levels of self-awareness.
•Enables online / runtime adaptation of self-
awareness capabilities and how they are
implemented.

18. Designed by Peter Lewis
Computational self-awareness
taxonomy

19. Designed by Peter Lewis
Emergent self-awareness:
implications for system design
•Systems can exhibit behaviour which appears
globally self-aware,
•No single component is required to possess
system-wide self-knowledge.
•Need not require that a self-aware system
possesses a global controller!
•Sufficient for components just to have local
knowledge, of relevant parts.

20. Designed by Peter Lewis
Multi-level self-aware systems
“Self” is a concept,
not a box.

21. Designed by Peter Lewis
Computational self-awareness
•To be self-aware, a system should:
Possess knowledge of its internal state (private self-awareness),
Possess knowledge about its environment (public self-awareness).
•Optionally, it might also:
Possess knowledge of its interactions with others and the wider
system (interaction awareness),
Possess knowledge of time, e.g. past and likely future experiences
(time awareness),
Possess knowledge of its goals e.g. objectives, preferences,
constraints (goal awareness),
Select what is and is not relevant knowledge (meta-self-
awareness).

22. Designed by Peter Lewis
Key considerations in computational
self-awareness capabilities
•Where systems differ in terms of their self-awareness, is in what
knowledge is available and collected, and how it is
represented.
•Key questions of a system:
Which level(s) of self-awareness are present?
How are its self-awareness capabilities implemented?
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23. Designed by Peter Lewis
Summary
•Some notions of self-awareness in psychology.
•Types of self-awareness:
Implicit / explicit self-awareness,
Public / private self-awareness,
Levels of self-awareness,
Emergent self-awareness in collectives.
•A framework for computational self-awareness.
Short summary paper on self-awareness in psychology and
computing: Lewis et al. (2011)